MARRIAGE

Marriage is more than the private relationship between two people in a marriage. Marriage is a social institution that provides society with the very foundation of civilization.  In order for marriage to remain the cornerstone of civilization it is important that society supports it.  Marriage has proven itself indispensable to the nurturing of the young. Strong marriages create strong families and families create a society.

Marriage is of public importance and affects far more than the two people who wed.  Marriage is the most basic and the oldest of the three foundational institutions of Western civilization “Marriage, Government and the Church”. Marriage is the most basic of the three because without children there would be no need for a government and even a church. Fruit of a marriage makes the government and the church.

Marriage to nature cannot be overstated. It benefits the married couple, their children, economy, and also the nation as a whole. Strong marriages give a strong nation. When our marriages are weak, so is our nation.

Robert George wrote an article in First Things magazine entitled what Marriage Is—And What It Isn't in which he stated, "The bodily unity of spouses is possible because human males and females, like other mammals, unite organically when they mate—they form a single reproductive principle. Although reproduction is a single act, in humans (and other mammals) the reproductive act is performed not by individual members of the species but by a mated pair as an organic unit. What is unique about marriage is that it truly is a comprehensive sharing of life, a sharing founded on the bodily union made uniquely possible by the sexual complementarity of man and woman—a complementarity that makes it possible for two human beings to become, in the language of the Bible, one flesh—and thus possible for this one-flesh union to be the foundation of a relationship in which it is ­intelligible for two persons to bind themselves to each other in pledges of permanence, monogamy, and fidelity."